I do realize that there are problems for someone like me writing about what feral and free-roaming cats do to an ecosystem.
I am not a cat person.
At least, I’m not a domestic cat person.
I have no problem with our native wild cats, be they Canada lynx or jaguars.
But if I start writing about the ecological effects of feral and free-roaming cat predation, I get called a cat hater.
Well, I don’t have a good defense for that. I really don’t like domestic cats.
There, I said it. I don’t like cats. (Maybe I like an emotionally shallow animal. I don’t know).
My reason for disliking cats isn’t why I have issues with free-roaming and feral cats.
There are two very good reasons for my problem with cats:
One is that they are an introduced species that breeds very rapidly.
And two is they are the epitome of what has been termed the mesopredator release hypothesis.
Mesopredators are small “B-list” predators that would normally have their numbers checked by larger predators in the ecosystems.
Of course, if domestic cats were native, their numbers would have been checked by native predators like cougars and wolves.
But now that both cougars and wolves are gone from most of their range, the cats can breed up in pretty large numbers.
Wolves and cougars don’t normally target small prey– why would a 150-pound cougar climb a tree to raid a robin nest? It would be a complete waste of energy for the amount of calories available.
But domestic cats will readily climb trees to raid bird nests.
Contrary to Farley Mowat’s book, wolves really don’t waste time hunting mice and voles, but cats hunt mice and voles for fun.
And what’s more, a recent study has revealed that cats kill billions of birds and small mammals in the United States every year.
That’s as much as 15 percent of the entire bird population in the country!
And feral cats, the animals we’re supposed to trap, neuter, and release, kill more native wildlife than domestic ones.
In the United States, we have as many as 164 million cats, and as many has 80 million of those are ferals, the vast majority of which cannot be tamed and serve no greater purpose other than to kill native wildlife and spread disease.
So what’s the solution?
Cats that are owned should be kept indoors or in enclosures outdoors. That sounds like a common sense solution, but of course, it’s attacked because you’re not allowing your cat “freedom,” which really means you are okay with your cat having the freedom to get FIV, hit by car, or killed by a coyote or fisher.
But fer feral cats, the solution isn’t even that pleasant.
it’s not nice at all.
Hannah Waters at the Culturing Science blog lays out the problem, which the authors of the aforementioned study tactfully avoid:
So the obvious answer then is that, if we value biodiversity and wildlife and can manage to overcome our predilection for cute cat faces over cute bird faces, cat populations should be controlled through humane killing, just like many other invasive species.
But the funny thing is that no one suggests that. In compulsively researching this blog post, I read many papers showing that trap-neuter-release doesn’t work, or studies showing that, in computer models, euthanasia reduces cat populations more effectively than trap-neuter-release. But then in their concluding paragraphs, after providing evidence that current methods aren’t working, the action steps proposed by the authors are: (1) all pets should be neutered and (2) owners should be be better educated so they don’t abandon their cats.
The thing about cats is they do readily breed on their own in the wild.
Considering how little cats are removed from the Libyca wildcat, they having been selectively bred for very long, and indeed, it’s likely for most of the history with us, they have been animals that lived in a sort of semi-domesticated status. Feral cat colonies, as they exist, are likely the source for most of the domestic cats we have in homes today, and these colonies likely existed for thousands of years in the Old World before most people ever thought of keeping them as pets.
But in the US, these colonies are all under 400 years old. No native mesopredator has ever been able to build up in such vast numbers as the domestic cat. I guarantee you that there are not 160 million raccoons or gray foxes in the United States, and though they certainly are taking their toll on native bird and small mammal species, there is no way native mesopredator release issues equal those of the domestic cat.
If this were any other species– say. a raccoon dog, which is a nasty introduced mesopredator in parts of Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe– people would be okay with killing them.
But as soon as you say that the only effective way to deal with the feral cat problem is humanely killing them, you might as well be the reincarnation of Hitler.
Indeed, there are some people, who even call themselves environmentalists, who contend that there are no invasive species and that we shouldn’t killed any animals for any reason.
That’s a recipe for mass extinction, because the only animals that are going to survive are those that have been able to live with human civilization. At its most extreme, we could wind up with a country in which the main predator in the ecosystem is the domestic cat, which feeds on house mice, English sparrows, European starlings, and pigeons.
That’s not what we need.
And that’s not a future we should look forward to.
I might as well grow a mustache. I am an Hitler it seems… I blogged about the cat as a predator, even published some of it on the local Huffington Post (in french, I’m in Québec). They didn’t even use my title “the cat is a predator” they made it something like “bad, bad pussy-cat”. Predator is a very dirty word and applying it to these cute furry things is not allowed. I did get a lot of hate mail on my blog (I didn’t published them). My god, if I actually stated the obvious solution: humane killing of the problem… And this is the right point you make. It’s all a question of scale. Small predator, small unseen preys… Imagine what people would say if it was dogs that we let loose in urban settings. Preying on cats… (I and the cat lady next door actually witnessed that!) Let dogs free in the name of nature right? Dogs are hunters. Let them live their life! Humane removal of feral cats and keeping one’s domestic cat indoors is the only way. Unless you are an Hitler by proxy!
Bravo for touching this most untouchable of subjects.
I read the article on your blog, and the numbers are truly scary!
Elizabeth
Let’s give them all to PETA shelters.
I agree with all you say on this subject, but I assumerd that was why you Americans had all those guns in the cupboard.
Peter, please stop stereotyping–its intellectually ingenuous.
That should read disingenuous.
I agree with your sentiments on the subject.
And seriously, you’re telling me that some people really believe there’s no invasive species? That’s a whole other world of stupid.
I was offered 2 young kittens by my veterinarians to use as barn cats. I refused them. They were puzzled as to why when I have so many stables and so much pasture. I told them… The cats kill more than just mice, they kill a lot of the species I moved out here and appreciate. If the mice bother me i setup traps and that’s good. If the cats roam the property they will likely kill more than mic e and even interact with creatures that carry other nastiness that would be harmful to my dogs and that would just piss me off to no end. I would have to pick up my rifle and start popping cats all over the place. I would then become crazy obsessed with the killing of these cats in order to save the natural ecosystem. And eventually I would encounter a cat lover and possibly have to take aim at them on my property. That would set of a Cat Vs Dog war and that would just escalate into total pandemonium.
Needless to say… she agreed I shouldn’t have cats.
Regardles sof your opinion on this subject I suspect there are more cat lovers than small wildlife lovers. When the wildlife lobby sets up to kill cats or be anti cat in any way they do themselves a massive publicity error!
There is no way around it.
You have to say the truth about cats if you ever want anything to happen.
It’s like trying to gild the lily about creationism vs. evolution.
I think a major factor in the feral cat problem is the truly amazing reproductive rate of the cat. I can`t think of any other predator which can match it.
The cat problem is frequently aired in the UK, but no valid solutions are ever offered. (The last one I heard was that every cat should wear a bell! LOL)
Elizabeth
People need to separate feral cats from owned cats. Too many people see ferals as being ‘just like my dear Fluffers’ so any sort of culling is seen as some kind of horrific pet abuse rather than what it really is — responsible wildlife management.
I don’t know what the law is in other states. But in Pennsylvania if you witness a cat killing any indigenous creature you can kill the cat. This applies to dogs as well, but how often do you see a feral free roaming dog.
We have leash laws for dogs to protect people and livestock. Why not similar laws regarding free-ranging cats to protect our wildlife?
We like cats. We’ve owned many over the years, but they don’t go outside and they’re all neutered. When one dies, we get another from the pound. The house is plenty big enough for them to get the exercise and mental stimulation they need.
It’s an education thing. Trickled down from the people who interact with our children everyday. If you have someone who was raised around rural environments and perhaps grew up on a farm before deciding to become the teacher that now sits in front of your children, then a lot of what they feel is normal behavior towards accepting how a cat is supposed to roam freely and still somehow be called yours …is just normal. It will rub off on the children they have a direct influence on.
Compare that to the Urban school kids, from a higher income group. They are likely more educated and more aware of what the hell is wrong in this world. The Millennial generation is very different from the Gen X populations of urban demographics. But the one thing both share is an open minded approach towards educating themselves on the facts. Very unlike the rural Millenials and Gen X’ers. They prefer to promote the hunt, beer parties and joining the military as the biggest accomplishment, then the women prefer to just get pregnant and don’t really care if the dad steps up to be a dad so long as they have their baby. What a cat does to the environment for this demographic, really doesn’t compute for them since the thing they call a computer is a smartphone they can barely afford.
The mindset of the urban population is what needs to be transplanted in the minds of the rural children growing up. Perhaps incentives for teachers from a better demographic social class to take jobs in the rural areas and level the playing field to the point where all children will aspire to be something more than the next wave of enlisted or the next mother in a line of professional mothers. Maybe they’ll actually improve things and build a better tomorrow, instead of waiting for someone to bail them out and support their kids.
Yep I said it.
Cats Suck. And I’ll bet the majority of people who love them are fitting exactly the modern stereotype I just threw out here. If you don’t like it… then come get your cat off my property before I use it as dog bait.
Not quite true about people who grew up on farms now telling others it’s okay to let them roam free. These are the bambified people who didn’t learn the lesson from growing up on farms, but instead are those that once heard about an “idyllic” life on a farm and how bliss-ninny, dog & butterfly, wonderful it must be. Or those that only visited petting-zoos while traveling in their urban-parents’ cars during a vaguely-remembered road-trip when very young.
The true lesson that all farm-kids were, and are, taught on farms is: “If you see ANY cat more’n 50 yards from any building — shoot it. It’s up to no good.”
TRUE farm-kids learn a lot in that simple and sage lesson.
Speaking of which, loose dogs in Oklahoma are pretty frequently shot on sight in rural areas. This ideas seems very little different, except that here the feral cats are coyote bait more often than not.
Some guy threatened Dave’s dogs when was walking them on “Crown Land” in Alberta.
Yeah, in Oklahoma if your dog is clearly collared (thus the bright caution orange collars) and they’re not killing chickens or chasing cows they’ll usually get a pass, but chicken killin’ dogs are shot especially quickly.
Bright orange collars are the great denominator of a hunting dog, so no one will shoot it.
I hate to disagree with you, but it doesn’t matter if they have an orange collar or not. If a dog is not under direct supervision of a hunter, that dog is shot if hunting alone, in or out of season. I keep a paintball gun loaded with red-pellets for any tray dogs. Stings enough to teach a teachable dog, and alerts the owner upon the dog’s return of what could have really happened to their dog. The first time they get the paintball gun, and maybe even a second or third time if they seem to be a well-mannered dog. (Don’t get me wrong. I took in over 15 unwanted dogs one time that lived out wonderful and much-loved lives while under my care, but I KNOW to not let them roam free to destroy even a squirrel or mouse.)
After the blood-red-splotch warnings on the side of the dog for the dog’s owner with the paintball gun, if that does no good, then out comes the rifle the next time.
Cats aren’t so easily forgiven. Because I know from past experience that you can warn a cat-licker about their cats until you are blue in the face and your whole world is destroyed by their cats. So out comes the rifle on the first sighting of ANY cat, collared or not. You can tell who loves their animals in rural areas — their animals are still alive.
typo: “tray dogs” = “stray dogs”
No offence, but a lot of cougar-hunters, bear-hunters coon-hunters, squirrel-hunters and trappers will be pissed off at you if you shoot their dog for going over the property during season.
Even then, if the dog stop hunting the game animal of choice because you shot it with a paintball gun, you might find yourself sued. Don’t think it will happen. It has happened in eastern United States, and in some cases in Canada.
In places where dogs are allowed to run the property, what the dog-owners don’t have the right is to shoot the game animal on the person’s property without permission. That’s your right as a land-owner.
Where people run hounds– like my state– hunters have the right to enter property to collect their dogs.
Unless a dog is running deer or livestock, there is no good reason to shoot it.
And even if it is, the neighborly thing is to call the dog to you and check it for its name tag. All of those hounds have name tags on their collars.
Dogs– unlike cats– are really crappy predators unless they learn how to kill in a pack.
Yes. That’s the acceptable code within cultures which run hounds, feists and curs. Dogs with orange collars are ignored during hunting season since it is really common for them to run over people’s property in search for game.
There was a comment that I read somewhere that said that, cats and us have more in common than we realize. It’s so true
Yes.. if left unchecked both can destroy a natural ecosystem.
100+ years ago cat and dog owners were held to similar standards, roaming animals were not penalized and people tolerated them as long as they were well behaved. There’s a reason ‘Rover’ is a stereotypical dog name. =P
Eventually though, Dog owners got with the times and enabled leash laws, containment rules, etc. But cat owners still believe its a god-given right for their animals to roam the neighborhood trespassing/defecating on other people’s property and killing whatever smaller animals it feels like. They’re living as if nothing’s changed in 100 years and as if they have no responsibility to their community and environment by responsibly controlling their animals. If dogs were behaving the way cats are allowed to there would be huge outcry (largely from cat people upset at their ‘preciouses’ being harassed).
Even now if a cat trespasses into a confined yard and gets killed by a dog there, the DOG gets labeled dangerous and in the wrong. Everyone (animal and human) is supposed to just tolerate these cats going all over the place and doing whatever they want because the owners desire to not have to take the effort to properly care for an indoor cat trumps everything else. They like not having to provide proper mental stimulation or spend the money on safe enclosures, they like having ‘low maintenance’ pets that they just toss out the door for most of the day. Yet they get all pissy if anyone dares say a thing negative about their ‘responsibility’.
It’s not cats I dislike so much as most cat owners and their entitlement complexes. As you can see it is a real pet peeve of mine.
I totally agree. I actually like cats very much, but only like cat owners like massugu who face up to their responsibilities. I don’t have a cat as my house is too small and unlike every other cat owner in my area, I won’t have a free roaming cat. For one, I don’t want an animal I love to get killed by a car. My dogs are kept on flexileads when out on walks to keep them and other animals/people safe. No, they’re not ravening beasts, but no amount of training will make a Tibetan Mastiff reliable offlead and despite his innate friendliness, who wants an unknown dog that size running towards them or their dog? The bearcoat wants to kill anything that’s not a dog and run away from strangers due to not being socialised before I got her.
Anyway, I don’t really want my dogs wandering more than about 30 feet away from me to begin with. Just this morning I had to help a man look for one of his dogs that he’d only had a couple of weeks, but was letting them offlead on playing fields that are only a 5 minute stroll to cross, bordered by a canal, railway line and main road into town on 3 sides. I’ve seen dogs killed and people injured swerving to avoid hitting a runaway dog on the road, not to mention dog theft is rife in England. I’ve no problem with people letting a well trained dog offlead in a safe area, but there’s a time and place.
I know responsible cat owners…. but, they are a rare find among the many that are just clueless.
I’ve owned cats as well. And my time with them hasn’t changed how I would raise and keep a cat. But, there’s no way I can shift the thinking of all the idiots out there who’d cats would roam my property. So I refuse to have cats anymore. Its a learning thing for my children to have the wildlife around us and to appreciate it. And a total disappointment when the neighbors kitty pounces on it and kills it right in front of us. As a visual it might be funny. But, as a parent who has to explain to his kids why the neighbors stupid cat keeps killing the birds or chipmunks we love to watch… well I exercise my right to pop that cat with a bullet on my property for killing any indigenous species. Sorry… thats the law.
And when the neighbor wants to complain…. I introduce him to my pack of dogs and ask him if he would rather I let them roam on his property.
Usually they get the hint.
There’s a lot more birds around here since I moved in.
LOL
What really gets me is when people use the “well, they kill mice!” argument for keeping cats outside. But how dare you tell them to utilize the native snakes. Nevermind the fact that they have a strong taste for mice and are safe for the ecosystem. Nevermind that kingsnakes will eat rattlers. Nevermind that their presence is almost invisible most of the time.
Snakes are too evil. Cats are cute. Ugh.
Which just goes to show that most people don’t act rationally. We talk about how smart we are but so seldom actually engage in ratiocination.
Licensing and laws do nothing to curb the problem. If cats are required to be licensed then cat-lovers just stop putting collars on their cats, as they did by me. And they won’t even bother getting them micro-chipped, especially not that They want absolutely nothing that can hold them legally responsible, liable, and accountable for the actions of their cats. It’s why many of them even keep cats in the first place. We’re not talking about the topmost responsible citizens of the world, you know. They don’t want that responsibility of what their cat has done coming back on them. If they had even one iota of a sense of responsibility and respect for all other lives on this planet we wouldn’t even be having these discussions.
On the other hand, I found something that DOES work, and works well, and works fast (well, relative to the years it takes trying to reason with deceitful and lying cat-lovers that accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING). Where I live cat-lovers have learned that _ALL_ cats, stray and feral, collared or not, ear-tipped or not (because TNR con-artist liars now just clip cats’ ears only, WITHOUT sterilizing or vaccinating them, to protect their hoarded cats from being trapped and euthanized), _ALL_ their cats are humanely shot on sight and buried whenever found away from supervised confinement.
The ONLY thing that works is destroying any of their cats found outdoors off their property. They either learn to stop getting more cats that die under the wheels of cars or from animal attacks, or they finally learn how to be a responsible pet owner, respectful neighbor, and learn to keep their invasive species animal under confined supervision, as it should be. Win win win all around. You can either destroy their cat for them humanely, or let their lack of concern for their cat cause it to die inhumanely. By destroying their cat for them humanely you are showing them that you care more about their cat than even they do. A bullet is by far the most humane death that any free-roaming cat will ever meet. Anything else is all inhumanely downhill from there. Their only other options are being hit by cars, environmental poisons, cat & animal attacks, disease and parasites, freezing, etc., etc.
You can’t train a cat to stay home but I found that, in time, you CAN train a cat-owner into being a responsible pet-owner and a respectable neighbor. Most of them are so phenomenally stupid, disrespectful, and criminally irresponsible though that you have to make at least 12-15 of their cats permanently disappear before they even start to figure out what they’ve been doing wrong all during their sorry, useless, and pathetic lives. (Though the ones by me were uniquely cretinized and lobotomized. I had to shoot and bury many hundreds of their cats before they started to learn.)
If you live in an area where its not legal to use firearms to destroy any animal that is threatening the health and safety of you, your family, your animals, or property (as it *IS* legal in most every area of the nation — shoot to maim is animal cruelty but shoot to kill is a perfectly legal way to humanely destroy any nuisance animal on your own property); then check into laws regarding air-rifles with ballistics speeds of 700-1200 fps and using pointed vermin-pellets in no-firearms zones. Many of the newer ones even come with their own sound-suppressor designs built-in, being specifically designed for shooting vermin cats in urban areas, the demand is that great. Failing that, then there’s always the SSS and TDSS Cat Management Programs that are exploding in popularity worldwide. Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-Up; or Trap, Drown, Shovel, & Shut-Up. Both methods are legal on every square foot of this earth. No local laws were violated if it never happened! (Where cats have already learned to evade all trapping methods, then inexpensive generic 1-adult-strength acetaminophen (overseas a.k.a. paracetamol) pain-relievers are a more species specific vermin poison. But you really need to retrieve and dispose of that carcass safely so that native wildlife won’t die from the many diseases cats spread even after their death.)
I don’t see anyone dumping cats where I live anymore. They don’t even adopt more than can be kept under lock & key 24/7. When driving through the area I don’t see even one cat on anyone’s doorsteps anymore. I always keep an eye out to see if there are more free-roaming cats that will have to be shot one day. And if I’ll have to leave fish-oil trails on all the roadsides again, leading right to my IR surveillance system and laser-sighted rifle. (Got more than 70% of the hundreds of them in the area this way, VERY effective.)
Leaving ANY of their invasive species cat outside in my area means instant death for that cat. You’d think everyone else could learn from this simple lesson. The quickest way to solve an unwanted animal and irresponsible pet-owner problem is to let everyone know that you will quickly and humanely destroy every last one of their unwanted, uncared-for, or unsupervised animals for them. They either grow up fast or, far more plausible, dump their animals elsewhere to become someone else’s problem.
You just can’t be an enabler of criminally irresponsible spineless and heartless idiots — or they remain that way. (At least where you live, anyway.)
I don’t think I’d want to get on the wrong side of this contributor…!
This kinda makes my point though, you have some say they have killed 100s of their neighbours pets to protect wildlefe (or cause they just don’t like them). How does that make people feel about the perosn and their cause?
I suspect in may cases shooting them doesn’t elminate the population, it just provides selctive pressure to be more cautious. In much the same way that coyotes are very careful animals large scaling killing of feral cats just makes them better at avoid traps/people and probably more effective predators, after all being stealthy is pretty good for hunting! This probably works though as people still think they have reduced the cat population (even if they’ve just made it smarter).
Btw I have free roaming cats! I always will have and have no interest in keeping them inside ect, my cats have all lived to old ages and died of age related things not cars or predators. I live in england, I don’t know what the cat killing laws are but I guess not as aggressive as the states. I’ve certainly seen stuff in the press which leads me to believe its not legal. I’d be pretty p*sssed if someone shot my cat as I guess most people would, .
Btw leash laws/signs are largley ignored at least in rural areas round here.
Adam
The thing is cats don’t cost a thing to replace.
Compared to dogs, they have almost no value.
If your cat runs away, 90 percent of cat owners just get another one, whereas most dog people would worry a whole lot more.
Stanley Coren did a study based upon how much cat people vs. dog people value their pets. He found that dog people who actually own a cat are more willing to worry about the welfare of that cat than people who own just cats. What means is most cat people don’t care that much about their animals, so it’s only a loss to the feral cat worshiping set, who are not the majority of cat owners by a long shot.
We’re not talking pets. We’re talking “outlaws,” animals that simply don’t belong there at all.
That is actually really interesting. I am a dog person who has had cats for the last several years because I couldn’t afford to keep a dog. (I will finally be able to get a dog in about 6 months), and I can attest that I (and my sister-in-law who is also a dog person who had cats) care more for, put more money into, and on the whole take care of my cats significantly better than most cat people I know. People on the whole do seem to feel that cats are expendable.
It might also be that my cats are indoor, neutered, and also kind of unusual in their temperaments (I specifically chose them for their easy going, people focused personalities), but I think because I want that kind of relationship with my pets, I do. Most cat people do tend to want a pet that just occasionally wants a pat with not much more work put into it.
I am not opposed to killing feral cats, on the whole, as they can be a menace.
Adam, you don’t just “kinda make my point”, you prove my point 100% (as all cat-lickers always do).
You can warn cat-owners until you are blue in the face and all your wildlife is gone. I tried to reason with them for 9-10 years, even giving them gifts to befriend them first. Thinking that, when asked later, they’d stop releasing their cats. Another 4 years arguing. Another 2 years of the Sheriff and I warning them that their cats would be shot to death if they don’t do something about the disaster they were causing.
Still that did no good. And after those 15 years of trying to reason with idiot cat-lovers, I looked around one day and realized I hadn’t seen any owls, fox, turkeys, grouse, hawks, snakes, spring-peepers, chipmunks, raccoons, wood-frogs, songbirds, etc., … I hadn’t seen nor heard ANY OF THESE for 15 YEARS! ALL GONE! NOTHING BUT CATS WERE HERE. ALL other wildlife DESTROYED by cat-lickers’ and their cats. From smallest of prey skinned-alive and gutted-alive for cats’ writhing-in-torment play-toys (not even eating them) up to the top predators that starved to death from cats destroying their foods.
That’s when I realized I made a foolish foolish error. I was trying to reason with terminally ignorant and certifiably delusional invasive-species lovers to protect valuable native wildlife. Just as you don’t ask your local career-thieves for help and advice on how to protect your valuables from their daily-motives and self-serving goals — you don’t ask any criminally insane cat-lover for help and advice on how to solve the very problem that they created and perpetuate. Ignore every last thing that a cat-licker says and the solution becomes clear. It was time to give the cat-lovers the exact same amount of respect and consideration in return as they gave to me and all other life around them — ABSOLUTELY NONE. ZERO. ZIP. NADA. The very amount of respect and consideration that they earned in all that time.
So on advice of the Sheriff the shooting started and didn’t stop until EVERY LAST ONE OF THEIR CATS WAS GONE — HUNDREDS OF THEM. Even when shooting their cats they released MORE cats. I came to discover they don’t really even care about cats in the first place! They just use their cats to control, manipulate, and destroy all other lives around them. (Google for why cat-lickers do this by searching with the string (include quotes): Cats “Human Territorial Behavior By Expendable Proxy” )
NEVER argue or try to reason with a cat-licker. While you do their cats are destroying your planet. Instead just do what needs to be done. Destroy every last one of their cats that you see that’s away from supervised confinement. If you waste your time listening to cat-lickers you can kiss all your amazing wildlife and sustainable habitats good-bye. You’ll be drowning in a sea of disease-infested cannibalistic cats with no other life around.
And contrary to cat-lickers’ oft-spewed lies that the problem never ends (BECAUSE OF THEM), I learned, and proved, that their moronic and mythical “vacuum effect” is a 100% manipulative and deceptive lie.
A study done by the Texas A&M University proved that any perceived “vacuum” is just the simple case that CATS ATTRACT CATS. Get rid of them all and there’s no cats there to attract more. I proved this myself after shooting and burying hundreds of them on my own land. ZERO cats replaced them FOR OVER 3 YEARS NOW. If you want more cats, keep even one of them around, more will find you. That university study also found that sterilized cats very poorly defend any territory. Non-sterilized cats, being more aggressive, take over the sterilized cats’ resources (shelter & food if any). If there is any kind of “vacuum effect” at all, it is that sterilizing cats cause non-sterilized cats to restore the reproductive void
I think you have a bigger problem with cat people than cats tbh! I remain convinced that this attitude to cats does more harm to wildlife than the cats themselves. When you create a situation were by people have to choose between doing things with their pets or not because of some wild animal in the area they will choose to not have the wild animal.
Large predator reintroductions often hit problems because the predator eats domestic animals. People are oten happy to be compensated for livestock (that was food anyway) but won’t tolerate it with domestic pets! And peopel usually like (at least somewhat) large predators, many people couldn’t care less about small animals (talking general public here).
When the wildlife lobby appears to be anti cat (or dog walking in certain areas) it loses support. When wildlife supporters cull animals it gets even worse. Case in point a UK bird charity culled feral goats on its land. Lost lots of sponsorship and funds from the public as a result. Now its much more careful about how it handles PR.
I couldn’t care less about your attitude to cats or cat people (though I suspect if your neighbours knew what you were doing you might have unpleasent consequences, even though its legal). But I care about wildlife and cringe everytime this comes up as I know it just loses support for wildlife! The reality is if you don’t get people to care about wildlife it won’t last. When wildlife becomes a problem (effecting what people can and cannot do with their animals for example) its more endangered. All the goverment protection in the world won’t make a differance eif the general public dislike/don’t care/are bothered by something.
Also 15% isn’t that bad, these animals are prey and living in an ecosystem that is totally unnatural, humans have hunted out many of the predator species and the cat has replaced them. When you don’t have predators popualtions grow too big and sickly and starve.
Adam
15% is actually terrible for an animal that shouldn’t even be there in the first place.
I’m very strident about this. There is no other way around it. If you care about wildlife, keep the cats inside and don’t support the TNR stupidity.
If feral dogs were doing this, I’d be in favor of killing them all, but they aren’t in this country. They are in the Galapagos. I’m totally okay with them killing every last dog on those islands.
People need to understand ecosystems are more important than individual animals.
The only people who go crazy over this are people who worship cats.
Most rational people, even those who own cats, understand that there is a difference between a pet cat and a feral cat. It’s the difference between a leopard in Africa and a leopard in New Jersey.
I’m very serious about this.
There is no way to be politically correct and be nice to these people. They must be challenged at every point, because they are responsible for extinctions and reductions in biodiversity. They are as anti-science and ignorant as any creationist.
And they need to be exposed.
I’m not trying to win them over, because if you care about the life of one cat more than the ecosystem, then we have such different values that I cannot consider you a serious conservationist.
We aren’t even talking about the same galaxy.
To me, it’s much more important to expose these people are the nutjobs they are, which is better policy than acquiescing to them.
And herein lies the REAL irony and joke that makes all residents from the UK (and this Adam fool) total laughing-stocks when it comes to the subject of invasive species cats.
Residents of the UK are NO authorities and never have been any kind of authorities on how to protect valuable native wildlife. They’ve already destroyed almost all their native species. INCLUDING their own one-and-only NATIVE cat species that are on the brink of extinction within MONTHS from now due to their man-made cats. Their adorable “moggies” that they fight tooth and nail to let roam and destroy everything in their wake have guaranteed the extinction of their ONLY native cat species.
http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/16/scottish-wildcat-extinction
“A report, produced by the Scottish Wildcat Association, reviewed 2,000 records of camera trap recordings, eyewitness reports and road kills, and concluded there may be only about 40 wildcats left in Scotland in the wild today. ‘However you juggle the figures, it is hard to find anything positive,’ says Steve Piper, the association’s chairman. ‘The overwhelming evidence is that the wildcat is going to be extinct within months.'” … “However, it is not the loss of habitat that is causing the current cat crisis in the Cairngorms. It is the spread of the domestic cat.” … “‘Essentially the Highland wildcat is being eradicated by an alien invasive species: the domestic cat.'”
Adam, come back after you’ve seen your very last living native wildcat on earth, now resigned to history books and animal-mounts in museums where you live. Then tell us all again what wonderful advice that you and all residents of the UK have for the rest of the world about your piece-of-sh** vermin cats and your glorious successes in conservation of biodiversity and native species.
How’s that omelet that’s dripping from your face right now? Did you finally notice it?
You certainly care about wildlife, don’t you.
That sound that you hear outside your home is the whole world laughing at you. Can you hear it yet?
The argument that we should just coddle cat owners because it will piss them off is not a particularly good one.
Would someone make the argument that we shouldn’t attack the coal industry for contributing to global warming, for destroying watersheds, and for making wide swathes of territory uninhabitable?
The coal industry has power– far more than the feral cat worshipers.
But if we want to protect the environment and ecosystems broadly, we have to attack the coal industry with the facts, even if it ticks people off.
The only difference is the coal industry actually is about the livelihoods of real people, and cats are nothing more than pets that exist largely to entertain people.
This is an amazing book, if you’ve not read it:
http://www.amazon.com/Rat-Island-Predators-Paradise-Greatest/dp/1608191036
I’ve come to the conclusion that the cat people are basically like the climate change deniers. It doesn’t matter how many studies there are, and it doesn’t matter how many reputable scientists, publishing in peer reviewed journals, conclude the same thing about the damage cats do.
The cat people will NEVER believe them. It’s an ideology, just like the lcimate change deniers.
I thoroughly agree with Pai’s disgust at the double standard… cats can kill anything they please, but just let a dog kill another animal.. especially a cat.. and it’s condemned as vicious and often executed
sorry, i didn’t read everything and i didn’r read any comment – but! do cats really have no natural enemy? i am not sure about it now …
in my home village some cats “disappeared” during the last weeks. mainly cats with white or light colour. some say a cat hater would poison them.
few weeks ago i heard at least one, maybe two eagle owl(s) near by. i was excited and asked google about the habits of this birds and i found out that they can hunt animals as big as cats …
so maybe we have a natural enemy now at least for light coloured cats?
i like cats and i own a cat. the job of this cat is to hunt mice in our garden. our hounds are not effective enough in hunting mice and i don’t wanna have a small terrier … ;-)
[…] The problem with cats (retrieverman.net) […]
Another recent news story written by an obvious cat-hater! =P
http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/01/28/cats-vs-rats-florida